I find myself reading Jack Schaefer's
Shane (1949) this weekend, occasioned
Shane (1949) this weekend, occasioned
by nothing more than a browse in Wil-
liam Allard's beautiful Leica photog-
raphy. I don't think there'd be much
chance of my reading a Western these
days, which only goes to show how ill
one can understand one's time. That's
not the easiest thing.
It was a shrewd choice on Schaefer's
part, to present this intensely sen-
timental story through the sustained
first-person voice of a young boy. It
allowed him to support a tone of leg-
itimate awe for the upper Plains of
the American West, to carry the some-
times fevered responses of his narra-
tion. (Noting this, director George
Stevens adopted the same perspective
in a film which so immortalized his
child star, as to illuminate every-
thing this actor did in adulthood,
opposite Paul Newman in Hud). Today,
readers who've been present for the
same years as Brandon de Wilde will
cut this story a wry slack. For all
its naïveté - not to say, cynicism -
it touches faithfully upon what is
not the easiest thing.
He was there. He was there in
our place and in us. Whenever
I needed him, he was there. I
could close my eyes and he would
be with me and I would see him
plain and hear again that gentle
voice.
Vanishing Breed
Photographs of the Cowboy
and the West
Little, Brown & Co, 1982©
Jack Schaefer
Shane
1949
The Library of America
Ron Hansen, editor
The Western
Four Classic Novels ...
LOA, 2020©
